First Session - July 26, 1977
Tape I; Side 1
Dr. Louis Silveri: Were you born in Asheville?
Lucy Herring: No, I was born in Union, South Carolina.
Silveri: Oh, Ok. What year?
Herring: October 24, 1900.
Silveri: Ok. Then you were the first of your family to come here
to Asheville?
Herring: No, my parents -- I came with my parents here. I was about
fourteen when they came here for the health of a brother.
Silveri: And you say you were born when? 19??--
Herring: In 1900; October 24, 1900. [inaudible]
Silveri: [inaudible] You were fourteen, and the reason why the
family moved was because your brother was in ill health?
Herring: Yes. I came here at the age of fourteen. I didn't
say 1914.
Silveri: But that was the same year--
Herring: Yes, yes. Because it was 1900, yes.
Silveri: Well, this area was known as a health [resort].
Herring: It was a health resort then. It was very outstanding,
and they had many sanitariums around within the city, and today you don't have
very many. [inaudible]
Silveri: That's how you got here, and you've been here ever since,
since 1914?
Herring: Yes.
Silveri: Ok. What did -- did your father have to quit his job in
Union, and come and find a job here?
Herring: No, my father was retired at the time.
Silveri: So, it didn't make much difference, you could move anywhere.
How many in the family?
Herring: Originally, there were twelve, but [only] nine lived to
adulthood.
Silveri: What number were you in the family?
Herring: I was nine -- I'm sorry. I'm very sorry. I was
[seventh of the living children, really the ninth].
Silveri: Sometimes, that's not easy to remember.
Herring: Well, that seven stands out, but when I answered,
"nine." Yes, I was the seventh child!
Silveri: So, when the family moved to Asheville, all the children did
not come to Asheville, right?
Herring: Well, there weren't many children to come, we were -- my
brother, of course, was here because he was the one who was ill. Three of
my sisters, and then my father came later. We first rented a house on
Short Street, and after I finished school -- we called it college, but it was
really high school -- in Union -- I mean in Orangeburg, South Carolina. We
finished what was supposed to have been high school in Union, and then went to
Orangeburg. I rented a house from the principal, Professor [John H.]
Michael, and brought my [entire] family here. I remember quite definitely,
my brother-in-law, Dr. Robinson, sent me $50 to help me have the family moved
from Union, here. And we rented a house on Hill Street, on the corner of
Hill and Gudger. It belonged to Professor Michael, and we stayed here for
quite a number of years; in fact, until my father passed, and of course, later I
left, and I can tell you about that --
Silveri: As we go along.
Herring: As we go along.
Silveri: Ok. You rented a house on Short Street first.
Herring: Well, yes, that was temporary --
Silveri: Temporary. Then you moved to Hill?
Herring: Yes, we moved to Hill Street.
Silveri: Ok, and you also rented there, right?
Herring: Yes.
Silveri: And then -- so, Asheville is where you continued your education?
Herring: No, my education is a very long story. I did some summer
school work here, after I finished State A & M College in Orangeburg.
And as I said before, it was really and truly then a high school. I did a
lot of summer work: some work here in the Asheville summer school, some at A
& T College, Tuskegee Institute, several [years in] Fayetteville, an
in-service type [program]. And then over the years I had my credits sent
to Hampton Institute in Virginia. After they evaluated my credits, with
the work I had done at State College, and the work I had done in state
accredited institutions or summer schools, they gave me credit for one year.
I was married at the time that I had my transcripts sent to Hampton, and I
didn't plan to enter school during the regular term; see, they had a quarter
system and the year 'round. So I did nine consecutive nine-week sessions
at Hampton. I think that's about equivalent to three years, and I got the
B.S. Degree from Hampton, and then I continued my work. I was in
supervisory work at that time in Harnett County. And after I finished
Hampton, I went to [the University of Chicago].
Silveri: What year was that?
Herring: I finished Hampton; I got the B.S. Degree from Hampton in '27.
Then -- oh, I guess several years later, I decided to go to Chicago. I have
a sister and brother-in-law there. It was easy for me to get my training
there, and so, I first entered the University of Chicago in a workshop,
Core-curriculum workshop, and they were getting ready to initiate a program at
the high school, and at that time I was [teaching] in the high school. I
came back to Asheville; I initiated the Core-curriculum, and the following
summer, I went back and attempted to register as a graduate student. I had
a little difficulty.
There was no question about the Hampton Institute credits. Hampton was
on their accredited list, and had been on there since '33. Many of the
southern colleges were not on the list, and teachers who studied there had to
make up deficiencies. And so, Dr. Russell was the dean. And when he
looked at my transcript, he said, "You have a beautiful transcript, but we
can't classify you as a graduate student!" I wanted to know why, and
I said, "Hampton was on your accredited list, on your list of approved
colleges, [it's] been on there since '33." He said, "But you are
not a product of Hampton!" I said, "I am a graduate of Hampton!"
He said, "But you are not a product of Hampton, totally!" I
said, "What do you mean?"
When he saw what Hampton had given me credit for: that is the summer schools
of Fayetteville Teacher's College and those other places, and one of them was
Voorhees Institute, he said, "Well, you have some institutions on here that
I've never heard of. And the University has a reputation to maintain; we
just can't classify you as a graduate student." I told him,
"Well, I wasn't willing to take any deficiencies, so I guess I'd just go on
over to Northwestern because I knew I could get classified over there as a
graduate student, and it was possible for me to commute because I had a car, and
Northwestern wasn't too far." As I started out the door, it was near
noon; he called me, and he said, "Mrs. Herring, it's almost twelve; if you
have the time, if you will wait, I'd like to talk with you some more."
So I sat down and waited. He said, "I'll tell you what I'll do; if
you let me select your courses, and if you make an average of 'A,' I'll classify
you as a graduate student!" I told him, "Very well, that was
satisfactory!" So he picked out the three courses for the quarter,
one was on the 300th level which was for the Master Degree, and the other was on
the 400th level which was on the Doctoral level, and I had no business with
anything up there. But that didn't faze me; I accepted the offer.
One course was entitled the "Elementary School." Well, I felt that I
knew that quite well with all of the experience I had. The other course on
the graduate level I studied, but I concentrated on the course that he should
not have given me.
When the session was over, the quarter had ended. I knew that
they usually mailed your grades to you at your home, but I went to the
registrar's office after I knew the grades had time to be in from the
instructors. And I asked the young lady there if she could give me my
grades. She said it was against the policy of the University, and I said
well this could probably be an exception! She said, "Is it a matter
of life and death?" I said, "Yes, it's just about a matter of
life and death! I'll just have to know!" She said, "I'm
not supposed to do this." But she did give me my grades, and in the
course I should not have had (and there were all men in the class except me, and
I was the only woman in the class) I had an 'A.' And in the
"Elementary School" which I did not study -- I didn't have time to study
that, but I felt that I knew it sufficiently, I had a 'B.' And in the
other course, I had an 'A' which gave me an average of 'A.'
I met Dr. Russell coming out of the building several days later, and he said,
"Well Mrs. Herring, you'll be getting your grades soon, and we'll see what
we can work out about classifying you, 'if' you made an average of 'A.'"
I said, "Well, I made an average of 'A!'" He said, "Well,
you're not in a position to know!" I said, "I made an average of
'A'; I made two 'A's and one 'B.'" He said, "Well, somebody's
done something irregular!" I said, "Well, I hope they'll be
pardoned; I think they will!"
When he went to check, I was in the library, and he came to me. He
said, "You know you did make an average of 'A' and I want to admit I didn't
have the slightest idea that you would have made an average of 'A!'"
I was disappointed, and I think he could see the disappointment in my face!
So, I said to him, "Dr. Russell, I'm sorry you told me that! I
thought you gave me the courses as a challenge to prove that I could do it, not
to prove that I couldn't do it!" He said, "Well, you made it,
and that's the thing that counts!" And I said, "Yes, that's the
only thing that counts! I made it!"
So in '44, I received the Masters Degree. I took it in absentia, just
as I took the B.S. Degree in absentia -- I didn't go back to either. But I
was admitted to Phi Lambda Theta. It's a National Honor Society, and I
haven't seen it in so long, and I haven't been active in it in so long that the
real name doesn't come to me. But it should suffice to say it was a
decided honor to belong. There were ten people, students, who were
initiated. There was one person from India, a woman from India.
There were two blacks; I was the one from North Carolina, and there was a young
woman from Maryland; the others were white. And of course, I received
congratulations from the Lambda faculty members. They knew the hardship
that I had because I had to work my way through school. I had a son, and
he worked in the "commons." He worked in the dining room, and he
helped his mother to get through school. He said this, "I'm helping
my Mother to get through the University, and she's going to send me to Tuskegee
when she finishes." And that did materialize, we did -- I did work that
out.
Silveri: [inaudible] Let's go back now to the time you came to
Asheville. As a fourteen year old, what were your impressions? What
did you see here? I wonder if you could remember that.
Herring: I remember very vividly. I thought and still think from
the standpoint of physical beauty, Asheville is (one of) the most beautiful
place(s) I've seen!
I've been to eight countries in Europe. We went on an independent tour;
my son was there in the service about ninety miles from London near the sea [in
1953]. He had a little British Ford, and we traveled. The trip was
planned by the Royal Automobile Association, and we traveled to eight countries.
Switzerland was the most beautiful country, and of course, I was fascinated by
Switzerland because of the cleanliness and the beauty there. I took a
sixteen-year-old girl with me to England. My son and his wife, the
sixteen-year-old-girl: Wilma Helen Ray, and I were on this tour.
After we got back to England, we stayed there for awhile. Then we flew
back to New York; we got on a train in New York into Asheville. We got
sleeping accommodations, and as we were coming into western North Carolina, I
raised the window, and said to Wilma, "I've seen a lot of places, but
western North Carolina still looks good to me!" And that's the way I
feel about it! I have found in these mountains a kind of -- I don't know
what it is -- but beauty. There's something about the mountains that is
satisfying or soothing! When I applied for a place here in the Vanderbilt,
I told Mr. [Joseph] Morris the manager, "I have heard something like this;
I don't know if it is accurate or not: Beggars must not be choosers.
Something like that, but please give me an apartment with a view!"
I've always said, "There's no point in being in Asheville if you don't have
a view! I find very much -- I get great satisfaction, you see. If you
raise up, pull that blind up, you can see. I can see the mountains and I
can wake up in the mornings and look at the beautiful mountains. They're
beautiful in the spring, with all the different colors; they are beautiful in
the fall with all the multicolored leaves, and in the winter, you get a
different kind of beauty when the sun shines on the icicles and the snow!
So in every season of the year, it's beautiful!
Silveri: When you came to Asheville, your father was retired?
Herring: Yes.
Silveri: Did you attend school that first year you came, or were you
finished with school [inaudible] Asheville?
Herring: Well, I finished in Orangeburg in 1916. I went back --
Silveri: Oh, you went back, so you never attended school in Asheville
at all?
Herring: I never attended the public schools here, no. I attended
only the summer schools, but summer school was founded by a Professor John Henry
Michael in 1917 under the auspices of the Winston-Salem Teachers College.
It was the only summer school available -- made available for black educators [in
western North Carolina]. I have some pictures I would like to show you; I
have a -- in fact, I have a -- I think this class was about 1918.
Silveri: Oh, are you in there?
Herring: I am on here, and a sister, my younger sister is on there.
Hundreds of teachers received their credits which enabled them to renew their
certificates, and some of the credits since it was a State Institution and was
fully accredited -- got credit toward certificate renewal and undergraduate
degrees, I'm sorry, I meant to say.
Silveri: Where are you on this picture?
Herring: I am there.
Silveri: And your sister?
Herring: That's my sister. And this is one of my best friends,
Miss [Vivian] Cline; she's Mrs. Cooper now. She's working very hard
with me on this project, this research project. I like to think of her as
my right hand.
Silveri: Where was this picture taken?
Herring: In front of Mr. Michael's home, and this is Professor Michael
here. That was -- this is his wife. These were the instructors.
This man was from Tuskegee, and this one is from Livingstone College in
Salisbury. This person comes from Knoxville. I don't recall her
name; we're trying to find out her name now.
Silveri: Where is this house located?
Herring: On Hill Street. 77 Hill Street.
Silveri: And all of the classes were held in this house?
Herring: No. The classes were held in the school building, Hill
Street School. It was a big school. But I want to tell you something
about this house here. This was Professor Michael's first home. Then
he built another home here, and this is where he lived until he died. But
the thing about this home here, it was in the 1900's. It was the school,
and Mr. Michaels remodeled it after they built the new school, and made it his
home, and it's still standing today, with many changes, you know, it is still
there.
Silveri: On Hill Street?
Herring: Yes, Hill Street. 77 Hill Street.
Silveri: I see, Well, that's a fascinating photograph; there, let me
just --
Herring: We have some older than that; I have some older than that!
Silveri: Ok. Fine. Ok, now that was -- you mentioned
Winston-Salem Teachers College. That was the black teachers college?
Herring: At Winston-Salem, yes.
Silveri: And they had these summer workshops around so the teachers
could get re-certification, you said?
Herring: They didn't have the summer schools around. Mr. Michael
founded this summer school in 1917. He brought his own teachers in, some
from Winston-Salem Teachers College, some from Livingstone College. We had
one from Tuskegee; we had teachers from Washington, D.C. He brought some
of the best teachers around.
Silveri: Oh, was he affiliated with the State?
Herring: He was made director of the summer school by the State
Department. And for twenty-one years he conducted that summer school there
at the Hill Street School. It was a public school building of which he was
principal. And he resigned in 1938. So, Mr. Michael is responsible
for much of the educational progress that black teachers have been able to make
here. Because in the '30's when things were so very hard for everyone, and
money was so scarce, and banks were failing, this summer school was available.
You see, the black teachers could not have gone all the way to Winston-Salem.
In fact, they didn't have the money, but they could stay here at home and get
their college credits or get their certificates renewed. So, he has made
-- in my estimation -- he has contributed more to black education than any two
or three people in western North Carolina. In fact, he was the first Jeanes
supervisor in Buncombe County.
Silveri: What kind of supervisor?
Herring: Jeanes: J-E-A-N-E-S. Anna Jeanes was a little Quaker
lady in Philadelphia, and she left the foundation that went to the improvement
of education for black people in the South. And so, he was the first
"Jeanes" supervisor, and I followed in his footsteps. I was the
second "Jeanes" supervisor.
Silveri: I see. Well, you said you went back until 1916.
You went back and finished at Orangeburg?
Herring: Yes.
Silveri: What did you do then? After that?
Herring: Well, the year I finished from Orangeburg, I had two jobs.
The president's wife, Mrs. [Marion B.] Wilkinson, called me to the office one
day. It was commencement day. Everything was over, and we were on
the lawn, and then she sent for me to come to the president's office. You
know, I started trembling because I knew I hadn't done anything that wasn't just
right. But to just be sent for, to come to the president's office, and you
are out on the grounds, I just had all kinds of question marks in my mind!
Silveri: So, I went into the office, and she said, "Doctor and I
have decided that we want you to take the principalship of the Great Branch
School. Great Branch is a rural school in Orangeburg County. We'd
like to take you out there." And the arrangements were made.
It's a long story. They were having a picnic out at the Great Branch.
Dr. [Robert Shaw] Wilkinson, the president of the college, and Mrs. Wilkinson
were to be guest speakers. In fact, Doctor was the guest speaker; Mrs.
Wilkinson made remarks. That school was a two-teacher, county school.
One teacher's salary was paid by the county. They added an extra room that
year, and they decided that would be the room for homemaking, for Domestic
Science, teaching the rural children how to cook and sew, and to do things of
that type. My salary was paid from the proceeds of the college canteen.
Large numbers of children came from tenant farms, and it was pathetic.
They came in just before Christmas and dropped out just before Easter which
means that sometimes they had six or seven, eight or nine weeks of training.
They had to harvest the crop. They had to pick cotton up until December.
Then they had to go out in the spring to get the work done during the planting
season. But on rainy days in order to accommodate the children as far as
seats were concerned, and I can see them now crowded in that long room. We
had to have -- I would have the reading classes, the math classes (arithmetic
classes, then), but I had up the blackboard -- the arithmetic -- when one class got
up to go to the board for arithmetic, the pupils who were standing sat down.
I had to have my reading groups, I would call them out around me, and when those
kids got up from their reading, then whoever found a seat just sat there, and
you just had to -- that was the kind of situation we operated in until the people
in the community raised a sufficient amount of money to match what was given by
the county, the Julius Rosenwald Fund.
They built a Rosenwald school. This was the school where I first went
-- was located in a cornfield behind some pines. That's where most of
the Negro schools were located, back in the back, down in the forest, on creeks
and branches. But this Rosenwald school was built on the road-side of the
main road; there wasn't a highway there, you see. As the Rosenwald
schools were built throughout the South, they were brought from the backwoods up
to the main roads, and they were all painted white and very nice buildings.
Hundreds of them spotted the South about that time.
Silveri: How long did you teach in that school?
Herring: I stayed there four years. But the thing about it, I
taught there -- I taught two schools during the first three or four years.
Mr. Michael gave me a job as a teacher in a one-teacher school at Swannanoa,
North Carolina. And the schools in Buncombe County were Negro then (I will
use that word alternately, sometimes "black" and sometimes
"Negro"). We had only three months of school. I received a
salary of $35, and I had a very comfortable home, and the best board that I
think I ever had. It cost only six dollars a month!
To show you how immature I was, the lady would fix a lovely lunch for me and
I had to pass through a wooded area. She had a boy who was sixteen.
At that time I was sixteen. I would go through this area, and as soon as I
entered the woods, I would open my lunch, and I would say, "Ralph, you go
on in the front." I didn't want him to know what I was doing.
My landlady made a kind of cookie that was sticky. I don't know, but it
was very delicious. I just had to eat it before I got to school. So
one day he told on me!
But it was a pleasure to be out there with those youngsters. I had
seventeen students, and their ages ranged from six to seventeen. I shall
never forget the boy who was making eyes at the teacher! I didn't realize
it 'till one day, it dawned on me. He was seventeen and in the first
grade! But at that time, you stayed on the primary level until you learned
to read, and if you didn't learn to read, you dropped out, got married, or went
to work, or something of that type. He was reading on the first grade
level. I hated so badly to see him with a little book like that, and at
that time they had no books with mature content. They were all about the
baby and the doggie, and that type of thing.
So I thought about it; I said (to myself) I'm going to try him in a second
grade reader. I asked him. I said, "Do you think we can handle
this book?" He stuttered and said, "Y-es, yes Ma'm."
I said, "Well, that's wonderful! We are going to see what we can do
with it." He did fairly well at the beginning. You see, I knew
nothing at that time about a student's instructional level -- and so as we went
along, the material became too difficult for him.
He was stuttering already; he was a stutterer. When a child becomes
frustrated, I didn't know anything about the frustration level then either.
See he was reaching his frustration level. He stopped stuttering and went
to sputtering, and so one day, I said to him, "Frank, if you don't do
better, I'm going to put you back in the first grade!" And I got the
shock of my life: he said, "M-Miss Saunders, I wish to God you would!"
So, I realized then that I had put him on his frustration level. When I
put him back on level one, grade one, he read smoothly, and that's as far as he
went. He never got beyond the first grade, and the next year he dropped
out.
But it was a wonderful little group of youngsters, and in addition to their
classroom work, I taught them what was being done in many of the schools at that
period. I taught them to "cane" chairs by using shucks, how to
make doormats, and things of that type. And they had what we called the
County Fair [then]. We were working one afternoon after school, and
everyone was so deeply involved in making different pieces for the fair.
One boy was caning a chair and a girl was putting a bottom in a stool, and some
were making doormats, and [other useful things]. So we heard a sound, a
whistle, and I said, "What is that?" Lewis Lytle (I will never
forget) said, "Oh, that's the five o'clock whistle, and I've got five miles
to go!"
So we rushed and put away our things; I was concerned about the two brothers:
Lewis and his brother. I was afraid -- you see at that time in the mountains
it would get dark early because we started in August; we had August, September,
and October. The fair was in October, and this was in October. So in
the fall of the year in the mountains, it started getting dark, but I was
concerned about the parents. But the next day the boys came back, and they
said that their father met them. He was concerned; he didn't know whether
they were somewhere playing by the wayside, but everything was all right after
he found that they were at school working. I vowed never to do that again,
and I didn't!
Well, you see, I would close school; I would teach August, September, and
October at Swannanoa School. We'd have our school closing program in the
church which was next door on Friday, and then on Sunday, I would get the
Carolina Special to Orangeburg, South Carolina. They would meet me there,
and they took me out to the Great Branch School, and I would work there for
seven months. So I taught three months in Buncombe County and seven months
in Orangeburg County, and that gave me ten months.
After that Mr. [John H.] Michael got me into this city school, and there at
the Hill Street School, I taught grade five and we had double sessions then.
The schools were crowded, and I taught third grade after dinner, after the
dinner hour. While I was teaching a class one day, a lady came in; I
didn't have any idea who it was. Mr. Michael had told us when visitors
came just to continue our work -- to nod to them, and just go on about our work.
I shall never forget: I had one class at the board doing common fractions
-- that was at the side board, I had one group at the back board doing
long division, and I had a group of students at their seats doing written work
in short division, and I was sitting on the seat with a big boy trying to teach
him two plus five, or three plus six. I didn't know that I was doing
individualized instruction; I just knew that this was where these children could
succeed. So, I was doing individualized instructions back there not even
realizing what it was! I just knew that was the only level on which they
could perform, and I just went on from there on their levels.
After the lady walked around for awhile, she asked one or two of the students
questions, and then she looked at the work the students were doing in their
seats. Then she went on out [of the room]; she didn't say anything to me.
At the close of the day, Mr. Michael sent for me and he said, "Do you know
who the lady was that came into your room?" I said, "No, I don't
know." He said, Well, that lady was our State Supervisor, [Annie W.
Holland]. She had to rush away, but while she was here we talked to Mr.
Latham. (Mr. [R.H.] Latham was superintendent). She asked him if he
would release you, if you would be willing to go." I said, "Go
where?" Because I was thoroughly happy, I wasn't interested in going
anywhere. He said, "Well, down near Raleigh they need a supervisor in
Harnett County." I said, "A supervisor? What do I know
about supervision?" He said, "Well you have to know about
teaching before you can know about supervision. I'd like for you to try
it. Mr. Latham says he will release you!" I said, "Well, I
don't know; I'll have to think about that!"
So, I went home and talked it over with my people. Mr. Michael made me
this promise: "If you will go and try it out for the remaining months, if
you don't like it, you can come back; I'll give you your same grade!"
He hired Miss Viola Means to take my grade, and my parents consented for me to
go.
Harnett was a very large county. They had a supervisor before, and some
of the people were disappointed when they saw me because they thought they were
going to see an older woman. I was just a stringbean, you know! When
they had the first county-wide meeting in January, teachers came in, and I could
hear some mumbling about the principal of the school there in the town had
wanted the job, but he couldn't qualify. And he said Mr. [B. P.] Gentry who
was the superintendent, had brought this strip of a girl out there, and she
wasn't going to do anything -- these teachers weren't going to follow her.
The people with whom I stopped were the Raglands. Mr. [Augustus]
Raglands was a school committeeman. I guess that rings a bell for you --
committeeman -- yes. He also told me that the principal had said that
he didn't believe the teachers in the county would follow me. He was a
very fine man. He said, "It remains to be seen. She's going to
have my full support!" For some reason or other the teachers stood
behind me in line beautifully: the old principals, the young teachers; everybody
including the parents.
My biggest problem was to deal with the school committeemen, and there were,
oh, about ninety of them. I had a meeting on Saturday -- my first
Saturday with the school committeemen. The superintendent called them all
together, and they met in the old school building at the county seat in the
community where I lived. I talked to them about working together to try to
improve the schools because there were about forty schools, and there were
approximately eighty-five to ninety teachers, but only twelve of those teachers
had state certificates. The others had just finished school there in the
county at the county-seat which went to the ninth grade.
The superintendent said to me when I went to the main conference, "Now
we have some people out there just keeping school; I will replace every teacher
out there with a teacher who has a state certificate, if you can find teachers
to take their places." I said, "Well, the thing that I would
like to do, Mr. [B. P.] Gentry, is this: I'd like to develop an in-service
training program close to Fayetteville. The Fayetteville Teachers College
is there. I can get some extension service, and have instructors from
Fayetteville Teachers College to come in and work with our teachers in the
county. Some of these teachers probably, although they have not gone
beyond the ninth grade, have good backgrounds in the basic skills, and with
assistance they could develop into very, very good teachers." He
said, "That's true!"
So we got Dr. [E. E.] Smith, president of Fayetteville College, and he sent
Miss Lenora Jackson up. We organized our first extension course, and we
got those teachers motivated. They were taking extension courses, some
were going to summer school, and we encouraged some of the young ones to go back
to college and finish. So we put on a big program there.
But coming back to these school committeemen -- that was my biggest problem.
I shall never forget that first Saturday, how they packed into that room.
I remember that the principal of the high school was there, and I asked him if
he would take charge of the devotions and the opening. He presented me to
the committeemen. I was disappointed because I thought the superintendent
should have done that, but he didn't have a supervisor for the white schools,
and he was swamped with work. In fact he was the real man, and he had all
of the county schools, other business to look after. I told the
committeemen my preference, the things that we would do together to raise the
level of our teacher's education to improve conditions in our schools, and just
gave them an outline of the things that I wanted to do.
Then there was a question period, and the first thing -- a very large man with
a very heavy voice said, "I want to ask you a question." I said,
"Yes sir." He said, "I have been told that you have come in
here to take our places." I said, "What do you mean?"
[He said], "Now we've been hiring teachers all along, and they tell me that
you have come in here, and that you are going to hire the teachers!"
I said, "I don't know where you got your information, sir, but whoever told
told you that didn't know what they were talking about! I'm not here to
take anybody's place! I'm here to fill my own place; I'm here to do
supervision. I'm here to work with you to help you find good teachers!
I'll help you find good teachers, but I don't do the hiring!" Well,
they didn't do the hiring either, but they thought they did, you see. The
situation wasn't so good because they would get their relatives into positions
whether they were qualified or not!
Silveri: Is this called the "trusteeship system"?
Herring: Yes, I guess that you might call it that.
Silveri: Trustee --
Herring: I know the first year I was there, one man came to me and
said, "Have they finished replacing teachers?" I said, "I
don't think so." He said, "Well, now, I will give you $50 if
you will get (he named the person) a position!" I said, "I'm
sorry, sir. I don't operate like that! No, you can't pay me
anything! You couldn't pay me a $1,000! (I knew she wasn't qualified).
The superintendent has told me to get qualified teachers -- to recommend qualified
teachers. I have recommended a qualified teacher for that place, but it
hasn't been filled yet. I don't know if the teacher is going to get the
place, but I would never take any kind of money for any kind of service!
That would be dishonest!"
Well, he wasn't happy, and that was the kind of thing I had to contend with,
but it wasn't for very long. I was working with them tactfully. They
felt that the P.T.A. was the place where you assembled to talk only about the
problems and weaknesses of the teachers. I got that straightened out.
I said at one of my county-wide meetings, "Now the
Parent-Teacher's-Association is not intended to be an organization to criticize
teachers; it's supposed to be an organization to help build up the schools, to
help make the program better." I had my goals, and I defined them; so
I would work tactfully with them.
If a teacher was a very poor teacher, and was not open to suggestions: I know
I shall never forget an old lady. I visited her school, a Mrs. [Maggie]
Mann, God bless her! She had a sentence on the board, a simple sentence.
It was not started with a capital letter, and it didn't have a period at the
end. So I said to her, "Mrs. Mann, I'm not trying to be critical, but
you have some bright students here. (I had seen some of the students
pointing to it). You forgot to put your capital there, Honey, and you
forgot your period!" She said, "Oh, you can't teach an old dog
new tricks!" Well, that told me she had a closed mind. She just
wasn't open to suggestions at all; so, I talked with the Superintendent. I
said, "It's a disservice to the children for the committeemen to keep her
there since she's not trying to improve."
So, he called the committeemen in for a conference, and they consented that
another year they would have to have another teacher who was certified.
They were kind enough to come to me and say, "Would you help us find a
certified teacher?" I said, "I'll be delighted to work with you.
You know, after all, I am your servant. I'm working with you committeemen,
to try to help you; I'm not trying to get anybody out of a job! I'm trying to
get qualified teachers, and teachers who want to improve. If they want to
improve, we want to work with them. But if they want to stand still and
don't want to make progress, then we will have to, out of fairness to the
children, we'll have to replace them." And so they worked beautifully
with me. I stayed there ten years!
Silveri: What year did you first go down there?
Herring: I went to Harnett County from Hill Street School in 1925,
mid-term 1925. I returned to Asheville in 1935. But while I was
there, we raised money. It's unfortunate, but that's been one of the
handicaps of black teachers; they have had to teach, and they have had to buy
equipment. They have had to buy, before the State made buses available to
them, some of them had to buy buses, they had to buy books; they bought pianos.
(There were no pianos available in many of these schools.) Some of them
raised money to lengthen the school term. It was a tremendous challenge.
When the school term ended there in Harnett County, Mr. Michael wrote me and
said, "Do you want me to save your place for you?" I said,
"No, I can't; this is a challenge, and I can't leave!" The thing
that made it difficult for me, but I enjoyed the whole program, I had no
transportation, and I would walk. I would stay at my boarding place
weekends, sometimes. From there, Monday mornings, I would walk to the
closest school which was about five miles, and spend the night there and visit
the schools. I usually stopped with the committeemen, but if I didn't stop
in the home of a committeeman, the person with whom I stopped would make
arrangements for the committeemen to take me to the next community. I
would spend the night there. Sometimes when I got away out in the county,
(and it was a large county), I would stay two weeks before I came back to my
boarding place.
It was so fascinating. I think the most enjoyable, the most delightful,
and the most unique experience I had was with an old couple. It was a
one-teacher school 'way out in the sandhills with little scrub oaks somewhat
like the desert. We had a meeting that night, a P.T.A. meeting, and I
stopped with this couple.
I went home with them, and it looked like snow. They had one big room
with a bed in it. They also had a little room on the side, a little
shed-type room with a small bed in it. When time came for me to go to bed,
the lady showed me the room. It was fairly cold, cold enough to snow.
She said, "Now, you are going to be perfectly warm even if it snows because
I have a good old feather bed!" I had been working hard that day; so,
I fell over into that nice, soft feather bed, and she put quilts on me that she
had made herself, beautiful quilts. Of course, there were cracks. I
could see the cracks in the ceiling and in the walls too. But in that
feather bed, you see, and with the quilts, I was perfectly comfortable.
So, I must have slept very soundly because the next morning I heard something
that sounded like someone laughing. I opened my eyes, and I saw the man
and woman standing in the door of my bedroom. It wasn't really a door; it
was a curtain they had pulled back. I raised my head up, and I [saw that]
the whole bed was just covered with snow! But I was just as warm as a bug
in a rug! You see, the snow helped to keep me warm. [The lady said],
"Just turn the covering all the way back." [The man said],
"No, I'll have to help!" So he got on one side, and she got on
the other, and they pulled that covering back from the back, from the head to
the foot; that threw the snow off. Then they left, and pulled the curtain
back so I could dress for breakfast.
When I came into that big room, that floor was scrubbed. Honestly, if I
had dropped a piece of food on it, I would have felt free to pick it up and eat
it; it was so clean! They were pine floors; they had used what they called
lye soap [that] they made from [grease and meat] scraps, that type of thing.
But anyhow, the floor was very clean. And there were these cooking
[utensils] she called them "spiders." They were a kind of
container that had legs and a top to go over it. When she served my
breakfast at the table, she took the top of the spider as she called it, and
there was the most beautiful, brown, great-big, fluffy biscuits, and so the hot
biscuits and the butter. (They had killed hogs.) I had ham,
home-cured ham -- hot biscuits. I took hot water because I didn't drink
coffee, and she had grits, and that was the most delightful breakfast I think
I'd had in a long, long time. I enjoyed it, and I enjoyed talking to the
old people.
As I went from home to home, I found the homes very clean. Sometimes I
slept on a feather mattress, sometimes I slept on a cotton mattress, and
sometimes a mattress had hay in it. I had only one uncomfortable
experience in sleeping. That was a very clean home, very lovely people,
two old people; they had "shucks" in the mattress. I have never
heard of anybody having shucks in their pillows. You talk about "oh
shucks"; I tell you that was one time I felt like saying it! I kept
twisting and turning, and I wasn't very comfortable, when she asked me,
"Did you rest well last night?" I said, "It was a nice night last
night. What do you have in your mattress?" She said,
"Shucks!" I felt it, and I said, "You don't have the
nubs?" (I don't know what they call the things.) But you know the
part of the corn where they break it off?
Silveri: Yes.
Herring: You know, ordinarily, you would take shucks and cut them up,
but they just had the shucks in there with this piece on it and all. I
think those were the things that made me so uncomfortable. But that was
the only experience that I had of turning and tossing all night. All of
the other places I slept soundly; I had no difficulty at all. But the
couple was so lovely, and the house was so clean, and the food was so delicious;
I hugged both of them before I left because they were lovely people. I
will never forget. I can see them now, waving as the committeemen came
over and got me to take me to the next school. I will never forget that,
and those people never forgot me. When they came to the county-seat, they
would bring fruit and leave it there for me. So they turned out to be some
of the best friends I had in Harnett County.
Silveri: Now when you went as a supervisor you were under the
supervision of the superintendent of Harnett County, right? He was a white
man, right?
Herring: The superintendent, of course, was a white man, but I wasn't
under his supervision. I mean I was working [under] his administration.
I mean he did no supervision in black schools. To tell you the truth, the
hundreds of black Jeanes supervisors who worked throughout the South were in,
according to their duties, they were the black assistant superintendents.
You see, they visited the schools, they recommended the teachers, they corrected
the registers (the teacher's registers), they checked the final reports.
I met at the court house, and they had a Saturday set aside. All of the
principals in the County had to bring their final reports, and all of their
final papers to me, and I had to okay them. In reality, they took the
place of -- well, they were just what you might call a "second"
superintendent. I mean he was over -- the superintendent had the general
care and responsibility of the whole school system. But in regard to the
administrative side of it, and maintenance and all of that type of thing.
He supervised that. But those black Jeanes supervisors were -- you talk
about "human engineers" -- they were that, plus!
Silveri: Were the committeemen you were dealing with black
committeemen?
Herring: Yes, they were all black.
Silveri: Ok; so you dealt with a black staff. What did you
receive as a salary?
Herring: I don't recall, but the county paid a part of my salary, and
the Jeanes Fund paid part. Right now, I don't know. I have just -- I
tell you I have been so -- I remember the first salary at Swannanoa and
Orangeburg. Thirty-five dollars at Swannanoa per month, and seventy
dollars at Orangeburg. Seventy dollars a month when I went to Orangeburg,
but I became so involved through the years, quite frankly, salary has been one
of the least of my concerns. I know it came from three sources: from the
county, the state and the Jeanes Fund. Well, the black teacher has had to
live on very little salary. We managed somehow, although we had to pay the
same for food, the same for clothes, and the same for everything else [that
white teachers paid]. But we have just managed to survive!
Silveri: I was just going to say you must have felt quite often a sense
of frustration when you were down in Harnett County, and even before then.
I've seen how little money was really spent for black education.
Herring: No, I couldn't afford to be frustrated in situations like
that. Now you take -- you think about the per capita money that was spent
for black and white kids. That's one thing that the people in the Northern
universities always talked about, the difference in some of the schools.
The money appropriated for a white child was sometimes five times that of a
black child. [Those things were unfair, but] we were so busy pioneering,
we couldn't afford to be frustrated; we had to keep a clear head.
Silveri: You seemed to manage on many occasions. Did you ever get
disgusted?
Herring: I got disgusted, yes. I saw the injustices, yes!
For instance, Cumberland County adjoins Harnett -- Fayetteville -- the city of
Fayetteville is the county-seat. Yes, it does come to me now. They
had colleges there. It was in better shape financially than Harnett
County. We didn't have a state salary schedule then. Some of the
County Superintendents would hire mostly Negro teachers who had second-grade
certificates and temporary certificates; they were substandard certificates.
I have letters in my possession (I'll take that back, not letters), but
mimeographed reports from Mr. Newbold. N.C. Newbold was the director of
the Division of Negro Education. I have in my files letters from Mr.
Newbold [where he] is complaining about the policy of equipment and other aid to
blacks. He complains about the fact that in some classes in some
one-teacher schools that had one hundred students enrolled, just an impossible
situation, and another when he is pleading for transportation.
In Lillington, the county-seat of Harnett County, I remember we put on a
drive. We would have boxed suppers; we would have school programs, and the
P.T.A. would have programs. The parents would plan and pay their money,
and many of them were tenant farmers and had a hard way to go. But they
raised money, and I will always remember the first bus! We bought a
second-hand bus, and it wasn't a regular state bus. I don't know whether
it was some white church that had had a bus put in or what, but I know it was
painted solid black. And we wanted to put the name, you know, of the
schools on it, and they wouldn't let us put the name of Harnett County Schools
on it because they said it was against the law! But at any rate, that was
the first means of getting children from the nearest communities into the
county-seat. This little black -- I said it looked like a little black
coffin, casket, or something! Those kids rode that until finally the State
decided to do something about it all over the state, and I'm sure other parts of
the South, too. So, they started providing buses for Negro children --
well,
even in Harnett County, even in Buncombe County, here, when I first started
working in Buncombe County doing the supervisory work.
Out at Arden, the parents worked there to buy a bus because there was no bus
transportation [but] the white kids were being transported. But we had to
buy a second-had bus from Arden in that community out there to come into the
high school. But then when the State did provide buses without
discrimination, I would say it was an unwritten law. The black kids rode
the used buses, the second-hand buses. Whenever there was an old bus
replaced, it went to the black kids, and the white kids got the new. And
the same thing was true of equipment; desks after they were -- the white kids
would have them and cut them up. Well, our people got them; so, we were
accustomed to this kind of second-hand thing. You didn't feel good over
it, but you couldn't afford to lose your mind over it, you know what I mean?
So, quite often you prayed over it to keep from losing your temper and from
climbing the wall, and that's the way we maintained our sanity by not letting
ourselves become too emotionally disturbed. We could just pray over that.
That has been the salvation of the black man: to pray over a thing, and just
work and wait!
And then finally, the State decided that they would say to the
superintendents on the local levels, "You will have to give this black
school a new bus!" And so we started getting some new buses, but that
was over a long period. It was painful in Harnett County to see white kids
riding to consolidated schools on nice yellow buses, and black kids walking to
school long distances, and most of them going to cotton fields when they should
have been in school because they were tenant farmers and they had no choice.
The landlord had charge, and if they stayed on the farms, they had to work.
So many of these kids would ride to the fields, cotton fields and tobacco fields
on wagons, and the white kids were going to school in nice yellow buses.
But that's the thing you tolerated and worked to improve, and asked God to help
you, you know, to make it, to make conditions better.
So, those supervisors, they were -- I have a medal that was given to me at
Tuskegee, I don't know what year. It's there in my jewelry box. It
must have been about fifteen or more than fifteen or twenty years ago! For
twenty years of service in "Jeanes Supervisory" work. We had a
meeting at Tuskegee Institute; so the "Jeanes" -- in my manuscript, I
describe all of this, you see. About the struggle that the black people
have had to get an education. It has been a very rugged path, but there is
something about the black person that is of this kind of endurance; maybe its a
part that our forebears passed on to us, this matter of bearing the burden, of
being patient and working on, but still hoping and never giving up, never
despairing of the fact that you will eventually reach your goal. That is
one thing I have never worried about: I have never worried about a job!
My father was a valet for a wealthy white man in Union, South Carolina.
My mother was a seamstress, but she chose not to go into the white home and sew
because she wanted to be [at] home when her children came home from school.
So she took in washing and ironing. Instead of saying a washwoman, we just
worded it -- we'd say a laundress. I had a little lipoma removed from my
neck at John Hopkins Hospital decades ago as a result of carrying clothes on my
head to white girls' dormitories in Union, South Carolina. I carried the
clothes over a mile, and when I got to the dormitory, the basket was so heavy
the girls would have to take it off. It just felt as if my neck was coming
up out of my shoulders. But it's a struggle that I guess you just become
-- you're not totally immune to it, but you become reconciled to the fact
that God is not dead and things will eventually change, and it's that kind of
hope, you see, that's helped us to go on.
Silveri: You mentioned -- well, your faith was very important to you in
those years, right?
Herring: If you don't have faith, you're done for! You're just
done for; you just can't make it without faith!
Silveri: What faith did you belong to?
Herring: You've got to have faith; you've got to have a vision.
You have to have patience; you have to be tolerant. And my one prayer has
been that I would never hate anybody or anything because that is the thing that
will tear you apart. When you start hating, that's the time you start
destroying your effectiveness.
Now you asked me about my faith; I was brought up in the African Methodist
Episcopal Zion Church from the time that I was large enough to play the organ,
and I had a little difficulty with my feet reaching the pedals. I played
for Sunday School. I have worked in the church in all areas. Now
when I came here to Asheville, I told you we rented a house on Hill Street, but
I taught at the Hill Street School, and there was a Hill Street Methodist Church
just a few -- just five or six doors from where we lived. My mother and
father joined that church; well, naturally I joined the church too. I went
to the minister and I said, (when I joined the church that Sunday), "I'm
accustomed to working in the church; it's as much a part of my life as the
school work, and I'm coming here not to just sit as a member. I'm coming,
and I'm asking you to give me something to do, because I'm accustomed to working
in the church."
Well, they put me in a class, the adult class, and there was an old gentleman
who taught the class. I studied my lesson, my Sunday School lesson,
definitely. During the discussion I had my ideas, but I wasn't being
helped by his discussion, and I asked them if I could get a class together of
young people -- older kind of middle-aged people. They said, "No,
that's the way it was when I came here, and that's the way it's going to
be!" In essence that's what it was. They did let me play for
the church for a period, and so I decided one day without my parents that I
wasn't working up to my potential in that church. I was looking for
something to do; I wanted to grow in the service, and so I just -- I didn't know
how to do it, I guess I should have notified them in writing, but I didn't know
to do that. So I just told the elder, "I am not coming back to the
church; I am going to join Hopkins Chapel!" That was another African
Methodist Zion Church on College Street.
So when I joined the church, I said to them, "I'm here for service; I
want to work in any area of the church. I am qualified to work at anything
I want to do -- that you want me to do in the church." And so they gave
me a class of young women, and that was what I had been hoping to have. I
taught those young women; then later I assisted Mrs. Spurgeon. I couldn't
play the pipe organ the way an accomplished musician could play it. I just
played it like I would play a regular organ, you see, without using all the
extra touches.
Then I served as -- later we organized. We had the Christian Endeavor,
but it had run down. There was a member there, Mr. Noah Murrough; I think
he was the first undertaker, the first person to operate a funeral [home] --
funeral director -- whatever you want to call him. He wasn't an
embalmer, but he had the parlor there, and Mr. Lewis, the white man who has the
place on College Street, did the embalming. Well, he was a member of the
Trusteeboard, and he was also a real estate man. He was in fairly good
shape financially, one of our -- probably the most well-to-do member at that time,
and he said, "I'll work with you, sister! (He called us all sisters.)
I'll work with you. I'll tell you what we'll do; we'll have a little
get-together in the basement of the church." And we had this little
party, and he furnished the refreshments and all. We got the Christian
Endeavor started. And we had -- as time went by we planned special programs,
and we had as high as one hundred and fifty in the Christian Endeavor.
Then I went from that to Superintendent of the Sunday School. And then
to -- I have pictures I can show you -- member of the Trustee Aid Club, member of
the Board of Trustees. I have all of these photographs in our church
history. To look at the picture, you wouldn't probably recognize [me] as
the same animal who's talking, but I can show you the pictures a little later
on. So I worked in all those places, but the thing about it, the minister
at the other church made a remark, and it didn't hurt my feelings at all.
Hopkins Chapel at one time was called Big Zion. Oh, you were just somebody
special if you belonged to Big Zion! I wasn't thinking whether it was Big
Zion or Little Zion; I just wanted something to do in the church. So the
minister talked about me; he said, "Lucy...[Saunders] has gone to be with
the big niggers!" I wasn't looking for people; I was looking for
work, an opportunity to do for others, and that's where I found my spiritual
fulfillment in Hopkins Chapel Church on College Street.
So my school work and my church work have been my life, and I haven't had
very much [social life]. I never was very socially inclined, and I know
when I was at Hill Street School, my sister Mattie and my cousin, Henrietta
Goodwin, both were teachers; they were very social minded. They liked the
young men; they both stayed there in the home with my mother. When the
young men would come, I would make it a point never to go to bed, and when that
clock struck twelve [midnight], I would open Mama's door, and that meant that
the young men had to leave. And my sister and my cousin Henrietta, both
said, "I knew she was going to have to be [there] -- I knew she was going to
open that door!" They would fuss, and they would fuss. It
didn't make any difference at all, but I guess that kind of supervision and that
idea of young men leaving at [a reasonable] time or being at parties must have
followed me on through [life].
I stayed with my second oldest sister. So many people or younger --
older
people now who are middle-aged or older call me [Aunt] Lucy because when my
sister's kids or daughters, either one of them attended a party; at twelve
o'clock if they were dancing or regardless, [when they heard] Aunt Lucy's horn
blowing, they would have to get -- Oh, we're just having a good time!"
I said, "Darling, your Daddy said for me to pick you up!" So
that's the kind of life I have lived; I have lived; I have been happy! I
have found happiness in my work. I love people, and I think that love that
you have for people, I don't care who, black, brown, or what color, is just
love. And if that (I think you don't inherit things like that, so I
use the word "inherit" in quotation marks), I "inherited" it from
my parents.
When we were kids, my father had an account with a grocery man in Union.
He would buy two sacks of flour. His name was Mr. James. Mr. James
asked my father one day, "Why do you buy two sacks of flour?"
So, Papa had a big family, you see; he said, "I buy one sack for my
children and my family; I buy the other sack to keep my wife from using the
flour that I buy for the family, to send to anybody in the community who gets
sick. It doesn't make any difference if they are black or white or what.
If there's anybody sick around in the community, she's going to send hot
rolls!" So, we have been accustomed to sharing, sharing in the
family, sharing with neighbors, and with the sick, and to have a concern even at
the time when they had "chain gangs" and that takes me back quite a
number of years. I know my mother, when the gangs worked on the streets
cutting the grass around, my mother would make a pot of good, rich tomato soup.
She'd get a beef bone, and she would cook that tomato soup with tomatoes, okra,
corn; it was almost a meal. And she would take that out to the men on the
gang, and serve them hot soup. Oh, it would be the dead to the winter
sometimes when they were working. [It is] deeply engraved in my training,
and so that has followed the entire family. If one is in trouble, all are
in trouble. We have stuck together over the decades!
There are two of us left now, one sister in Chicago, and myself. She
and her husband will be coming the third of August; they come every August and
spend the month of August with me. Well, when my second oldest brother,
who was blind for twenty years, was living, he came every August and spent the
summer with us. So, you see we have kind of stuck together through the
ages, through the decades rather, not through the ages. I don't know what
you might consider the ages, but that sounds more like centuries. But any
rate, through the decades we have stuck together, and so the two of us are still
clinging together, and we find happiness looking back.
My sister who [came with me] when we moved here -- I laid aside my manuscript
to help nurse [her]; she was ill for two years. And it was a privilege and
a pleasure to see that she was comfortable. We have a person who comes in
-- a lovely person -- who comes in. She has been with us for two years.
We have always had to have somebody to help us because I was not physically able
to do lifting and things of that type, but I was with my sister to the "end
of the line." Doctor [James T.] Littlejohn said to me last year,
early in the year, when she was in the hospital, "You're going to have to
put your sister in a nursing home; your heart will not take the pressure!
This is -- which is it, the fourth or the fifth?" I said, "The
fifth elderly person I have taken care of in my family!" He said,
"Well, you can't take it any more, and I'm suggesting that you put her in a
nursing home!"
I was outside of her door talking with Dr. Littlejohn, and I said to Dr.
Littlejohn, "Doctor, if I have to crawl, if I can get somebody to help me
with my sister, I will not put her in a nursing home!" He said,
"Well, can you get someone?" I said, "Yes, we have
someone." He said, "Well, that's fine, but don't tax yourself
too heavily, all right?" When I came back into the room, my sister
said, "I heard what you said to Dr. Littlejohn; if you had told him you
were going to put me in a nursing home, I would have lost my mind!"
Although she had told me all along if the situation gets to the place where you
can't handle it, I will go to a nursing home. But I said, "No, I
don't want you to go to a nursing home!" I nursed my oldest sister,
that's the thing that's responsible for my first heart block.
But I have sustained through the years. In 1968, when I came back from
Phoenix, Arizona, I went there to be with my son's family while he was in
Vietnam. I came back here in '69, and two weeks after I was here, I was
hospitalized. I stayed in the hospital two months. Nobody expected
me to live; four doctors said I wouldn't make it! My first doctor, after a
month, stood at my bedside, and said, "Mrs. Herring, I'm sorry; I'm not the
man for your case!" I said, "Well, call in as many specialists
as you want; call in Dr. Littlejohn." I said, "No, don't turn me
over to Dr. Littlejohn! Hold on!"
But he went to California; he had to have his vacation. Doctors can't
stay at a place because the patient is almost on [his or her] way out. And
Dr. John Holt -- oh, and the head nurse came in, and she said, "Mrs.
Herring?" I said, "Yes." She said, "I told your
doctor that he was leaving a critically ill patient, and his reply was:
"I'm leaving her in the hands of Dr. John Holt; he can do more for her than
I can." I said, "That is entirely satisfactory with me because
Dr. John Holt's father was our family doctor, and he was one of the best doctors
I've known barring none!" And so I came through, when he said --
after
I did pull through after two months when Dr. Vincent came back, and I didn't
give him up, when I went back for the examination, after having been out two
weeks. He said to me, "Mrs. Herring, I don't know why God spared
you!" I said, "Well, you sit down, and I'll tell you why!
He spared me because he had something else for me to do!"
I found out that there were a lot of things for me to do, and the most
important thing as I see it, was to care for my sister two years. I have a
nice aluminum cot with a nice mattress, and the doctors even let me put the cot
beside her bed in the hospital, and I stayed with her until the "end of the
line," and saw her peacefully go. It's a consolation; I don't have
any sadness. At eighty-three for her to just have every wish granted and
to pass peacefully. I guess the nurses thought I was out of my mind when I
said, "Well, thank God, her request is granted!" Well, she
wanted to go, and she just peacefully slept away. Now for a beautiful
picture -- I don't feel sadness. I feel happiness that she is no longer here
suffering, and that she has gone to be at peace! So, that is happiness as
I see it.
Silveri: All right, now let me summarize in a chronological way as far
as we have gotten so far. You were born in 1900.
Herring: 1900. October 24.
Silveri: You came to Asheville with your family in 1914.
Herring: Right.
Silveri: And you finished at Orangeburg. You went back in 1916,
you finished at Orangeburg.
Herring: Yes, and in 1927 at Hampton I got the B.S. Degree at Hampton
--
Silveri: Wait a minute now!
Herring: All right, I'm sorry!
Silveri: Then between the time you finished at Orangeburg -- no, after
you finished at Orangeburg, you taught there and you also taught in Swannanoa.
This [was] from 1916 to 1920 about, and then you got a job at the Hill Street
School and you taught there from about 1920 to 1925.
Herring: And then from '25 -- in the midterm of '25 -- I went to Harnett
County, and I stayed there ten years, and I decided I wanted to come back home
because I wanted my boy to be under the influence of a strong man because my
marital sky had fallen, and I brought him back here. And I was given a job
before I left in the Stephens-Lee High School, and I taught English classes
there, freshmen students, and I did initiate a CORE program. Then after my work at Stephens-Lee High School, I came back from summer
school in...['41]. The superintendent sent for me; I didn't know what he
wanted. And if you could follow my record, I have never applied for a job!
Dr. Miller said to my sister, "Tell Mrs. Herring to call Mr. [R. H.] Latham
[superintendent] as soon as she gets in from Chicago!" I called, they
said, "Come to the office Saturday morning." When I went to the
office Saturday morning, I found the high-school principal, Mr. Toliver -- I mean
Dr. [Albert E.] Manley and Mr. Toliver. Manley was leaving to go to the
State Department. Mr. Toliver was taking his place, and he {Mr. Latham)
asked me if I wanted the principalship of Mountain Street School. I said,
"It depends on two things!" He said, "What?"
"First, I do not want the position if the two schools are not
divorced." Mr. Manley was supervising principal of the Mountain
Street School, and Miss Mamie Martin was the building principal. Yes, he
was supervising principal of the Mountain Street School. Miss Mamie was
the building principal and taught a full class. He said, "Why do you
object to taking the school if they are not divorced?" I said,
"If I'm going to be principal, I want to be principal, not a figure
head!" He said, "Are you calling Miss Mamie a figure head?"
I said, "I'm not calling Miss Mamie anything. Any person who is going
to teach a full class all day cannot be principal of a school!" He
said, "Well, the two schools are divorced! Now, what's your next
thing? "I want to know if I'm taking Miss Mamie's job. I don't
want to take anyone's job. If it means I'm causing her to lose her job, I
don't want it!" He said, "Well, she has retired; she's sick.
Is there anything else?" I said, "No! I will appreciate
it. I will take the job! I will do the best I can!" And
we gave Asheville the first accredited Negro elementary school.
After being at Mountain Street School for eight years, I was given the job of
supervisor. I was in Chicago again. I went back to do some special
work after leaving. Mr. Byers wrote me rather, and asked me if I would
consent to leave Mountain Street School; if I can conceive of your leaving your
dearly beloved Mountain Street School -- I would like for you to take the
supervision of the city schools because the State has appropriated money for
supervision throughout the state. When I came home, we talked it over; so,
I accepted the supervision of the city schools, but in the meantime, I did not
mention that when I came back to Stephens-Lee as a teacher that I also did
part-time supervision in the Buncombe County Schools. When I took the full
supervision of the Asheville City Schools, they said, "You don't have to
take the county schools now." I said, "I will have to take the
county schools!" They said, "But you don't have to!"
I said, "Well, I have to! I will take them if I have to take them by
night! Now the county is paralyzed by numbers of schools, and those two
little black schools (there weren't but two) would have been totally lost!
I will have to take them!" So I continued for fifteen years taking
the county and the city.
After fifteen years, I decided to do some work in reading. I wanted to
see what was happening to kids when they reached the college level. So the
Doris Duke Foundation made money available for the initiation of a reading
experiment at Livingstone College -- a four year program. The Board
consented to let me go; I asked them to release me. I was within two years
of retirement, and so I did this experiment with college freshmen students
starting with one teacher and expanding to take the entire -- all of the freshmen,
increase the staff of six members, and while I was doing that, I also served as
consultant for the Head Start Program in the Salisbury city schools. And in
the summer, I conducted a summer school program for high school students of
college potential, and that was sponsored by the Jessie Smith Noyes Foundation.
So I did these three jobs from 1964 to 1968. And I retired from
Livingstone College in 1968, and went to Phoenix to be with my son's family
because he had gone to the [Vietnam] war. That's it! Yakety-yakety-yak!!!
Silveri: Ok! I just want to make sure of that outline there
before we stop today. I know that we're just scratching the surface.
I know we're going to have to [stop].
Herring: What time do you have?
Silveri: I'm going to turn this thing off.
Second Session - August 2, 1977
Tape I, Side 1
Silveri: I'm not sure I got the names
down. Do you go by your maiden name or your married name?
Lucy Herring: I go by my married name.
Dr. Silveri: Okay, then I forgot to get on
the first tape the family name, I think.
Lucy Herring: Well, the family name is
S-A-U-N-D-E-R-S. Saunders.
Dr. Silveri: Saunders.
Lucy Herring: Lucy Saunders Herring.
Dr. Silveri: S-A-U-N-D-E-R-S?
Lucy Herring: Right.
Silveri: Okay. Let's go back now to
1935. You spent ten years in Harnett County.
Herring: Yes.
Silveri: Since I talked to you last, I looked
on the map where Harnett is.
Herring: Yes.
Silveri: The county seat is Erwin, was Erwin?
Herring: No, the county seat is Lillington.
Silveri: Lillington, right in the middle sort
of.
Herring: Right.
Silveri: That was very rural.
Herring: Predominantly, well, all rural
practically. Tenant farmers.
Silveri: Tenant farmers?
Herring: Yes. Many tenant farmers.
Very few of the black ... farmers owned their --
Silveri: All right.
Herring: Property. And that's the thing
that made it difficult for the schools, you know, the attendance was affected by
the work that the children had to do on the farms.
Silveri: Now you spent ten years there.
In 1935 you decided to come back to Asheville, why?
Herring: Well, I -- after ten years there, I
wanted -- I told -- when I left Asheville, I left with the understanding that I'd
come back and the doors would be open, if I wanted to come back. As you
recall, I told you that I didn't want to go, but the superintendent gave the
principal and the State Supervisor permission for me to leave on a trial basis,
with the understanding that if I liked the work I would stay there and work.
If I didn't, I could come back and get my same position. Well, I worked
the remainder of a year, you see, it was midterm when I left; I worked the
remainder of that school year in Harnett County, and the fact that they had
forty schools, about ninety some odd teachers, and only twelve of those teachers
had college, you see what I fell into. I think I mentioned the fact, or if
I didn't I'm mentioning it now: my first task was to get the teachers
together. My most difficult task was that of working with the school
committeemen.
As I explained to you they were all black.
There were three committeemen in each school. They had been in charge;
they recommended the teachers. They did not have a white supervisor.
The superintendent had everything to do in the white schools, the supervision,
and the general charge of all the schools. He had no time to devote to
black schools, and he was really overworked trying to take care of the white
schools. Many of the white citizens were also farmers, and many of them
were very poor farmers. Harnett County was a very poor county, and at that
time, we did not have a State salary schedule. The State was not paying
the salaries. The counties paid the salaries of the teachers at that time.
Because of that, black people suffered in many of the county school systems
throughout the South. Of course, at that time, they had State
certificates, then they had substandard certificates. There were temporary
certificates; there were even second-grade certificates. In Fayetteville
which is in Cumberland County, a much more prosperous county than Harnett, the
superintendent there reportedly hired mostly black substandard teachers in order
to avoid paying big salaries, but the white teachers were paid a different
salary. And they would take white teachers with State certificates, but
they took very few black teachers with State certificates because they didn't
want to pay them that salary. I have in my files a report from Dr. Newbold's
office; he was director of the Division of Negro Education. He worked very
closely with the supervisors, and I explained to you that we were "Jeanes
Supervisors." In this report, I might as well say these reports
because I have several, it was not uncommon to find one-teacher schools with
enrollments of fifty or sixty, in some cases, one hundred, but you see they came
-- the attendance was poor. They were crowded; yet, they were not
there full time. Very few of them attended full time, in fact during the
planting season and the season when they were gathering crops, I think I
mentioned to you before that the large children would drop out -- I mean they
would come into the schools after the cotton crops were harvested around the
first of December. They dropped out to do the plowing to prepare for the
spring crops around the first of April. So you see just sometime in
December, January, and February; in fact, many of them dropped out in March.
Well, I stayed there, and we put on -- the black
teachers and I put on an intensive drive to lift the level of training of those
teachers. I had a difficult time convincing some of the school
committeemen that I was there to help. I shall never forget the first
county-wide meeting with the school committeemen. We had approximately a
hundred of them there, and after (I might be repeating something I said before,
but it's important) I had had the opening session, and we had the opening
session, I'm sorry, I started talking to the school committeemen; that was on a
Saturday morning. One of the first things that I was asked was this:
a very hefty school committeeman got up in the room and said, "I understand
that you are here to take our jobs! We have been hiring teachers, and I
understand it is your job now to hire teachers!" Well, I knew that
they weren't ever able to hire teachers; they would recommend them, and I knew I
didn't have anything to do with hiring teachers. I could only recommend
them. But I told him this; I said, "No, I'm not here to take
anyone's job! I'm trying to help those who are doing jobs here, to do them
better if I can and where I can!" Of course I satisfied them. I
convinced them that I wanted to work with them. I said, "If you find
a good teacher or if you need a teacher for your school, if you can't find one,
then you and I together can get busy and we can find a teacher!" So
that worked out all right. So we raised the standards there in the county.
Silveri: Okay, then before we come to talk
about your coming back to Asheville, over a period of ten years then in Harnett
County while you were there, did you see a great deal of improvement in
education in the black schools?
Herring: That last eight months, we raised
the standards, remember? There was a slogan -- there was a saying in
Raleigh at the Education Department when teachers would apply for work or go
there and try to make contacts for work, they would say, "Go to Harnett
County!" See Harnett County was not very far away, and at that time
over the years they had taken anybody regardless of their training! The
superintendent was a fine person, but he did not have the time to devote to
black schools. He really had a tremendous task of trying to take care of
the white schools. But as I mentioned before, I recall quite differently
on the other tape I said some of the teachers held substandard certificates.
He said, "Replace them!"
Some of the counties like Cumberland County will
not pay for state teachers, and therefore, the teachers are not encouraged to
raise their certificates or to raise their educational standards.
"But with every substandard teacher we have, if you can find somebody to
replace her who has a State certificate, I'll hire her or him!" I
said, "I'm not concerned with trying to replace people so much as I am to
lift people and to improve the teachers. Some of them, although they don't
have degrees, they are doing a good job, and I know it." So the point
is this, we got some teachers to go back to school, the young ones who had just
finished the high school which was the ninth grade, and the standards were not
very high. We got them to go back to school; some went to Fayetteville
College, and they did work that was really below the high school level.
Many went back and went through in-service training. We had extension
courses; Fayetteville Teachers College is not very far from Harnett County, and
the State had extension work conducted at that time, and so instructors from the
college would come. On Saturday mornings and sometimes during the week in
the evenings, we would have these extension courses and the teachers would get
credit for that. That credit counted toward certificate renewal and to
raise the certificates from one level to the other. In that way, when we
left Harnett County, not only had the teachers raised the point in their
training and their background, but they had college training, some got their
degrees, some got the equivalent of the degree through in-service work and
summer school, and we also were successful in raising money to build quite a
number of Rosenwald Schools.
Now coming back to Asheville, while I wasn't in
Asheville, while I was in Harnett County, as I said before, I had no
transportation. I had no car; very few people then had cars. I met a
young man who was a farm demonstration agent, from a very fine family. He
was traveling through the same areas of the county; he would hold meetings in
the communities and talk to the people about improving the land, and about
rotation crops instead of planting just all cotton crops and to produce other
crops, and he worked with them. He would go out on the farm and work with
them. Then he would have meetings at night; so we formed an agreement that
I would go with him and have joint meetings. While he would talk sometimes about improving home conditions and improving the crops, then I would talk
about improving education, and then we got excellent cooperation from the
parents. It was just a wonderful experience; it was just the fact to see
how hungry they were for help not only with their farms, but with the education
of their children.
In 1935, I decided -- I had married -- let me go back;
I must back up a minute. This same young man -- I can tell you how it
started. There wasn't this courtship type of thing; I had never been very
much interested in boys throughout my life, but people can grow on you, you
know. And so one Sunday, I was attending a church service; very often I
spoke to people in the churches on Sunday. That was the way I reached many
of them, and after the service was over, this young man said to me, "I'll
take you home!" I said, "Very well." So I had come
out with one of the school committeemen, and so when I went around to the side
of the church, he had a nice, shiny Chevrolet! I said, "Oh my, what a
beautiful car!" He said "Well, that's a surprise!" So
we rode on; so that Sunday he took me back to my place where I was boarding, he
said, "Do you like my car?" I said, "Yes!" He
said, "I'll give it to you if you want it!" I said, "I know
you're joking! You could never make me believe that!" He said,
"I've never been more sincere in my life! I will give it to you on
one condition!" I said, "What is the condition?" He
said, "I will give it to you, if you will take the car and the Owner."
So that was a proposal! I said, "Well, I don't think I could handle
the Owner, but I think I could handle the car!" He said, "You
think about it!"
Well, I did think about it, and at that point in my
life, I thought it was time I fell in love with somebody, and I did.
Eventually he made a trip to Asheville to ask my mother and my father if they
would give their consent, and they were quite pleased with him. We were
married at Christmas time; don't ask me the year. I don't recall it, but I
recall the affair with very pleasant memories. We were married in the home
of my sister and brother-in-law, Dr. Joseph and Mrs. Robinson in Hamlet, North
Carolina. So I lived there in Harnett County, and later a son was born.
By the way, my husband's name was A-S-A; that's a Biblical name, Asa.
Okay, Asa Herring. We named our son Asa Herring, Jr.
I mentioned in the last interview with you that
after seven years, my marital sky fell, but it wasn't the end of the world.
It was quite an ordeal, but we decided that I wanted to bring -- to take my young
son back to Asheville where he could be under the influence of a good man.
I didn't want to bring him up without a father image. Although the sky
fell, we were friendly throughout to the end of his life, which I can tell you
about later. But we came back to Asheville, and we stopped and stayed with
my second oldest sister, Mrs. Nettie Candler; her husband [Wallace E. Candler] was a shoemaker, and
he had a barbershop. He was a very good man, a church man, a family man.
I don't know that I could have found a better person. He had two girls;
one was near the age of my son, and so we just fitted in as a family. He
was a very unusual person. He had done hotel work here in the city before
he went to the war, and before he finished his training in shoemaking. So
having been a hotel man, he liked to prepare food. He prepared food every
morning for the whole family. And my son stayed there, and he finished the
high school as I told you.
The thing that I recall now, I was teaching the
high school when I first came back, and the thing that happened I had to teach
English classes to about two hundred students. The superintendent said --
I
think I mentioned this before, the high school teachers who had been trained
specifically for high school work did not understand what to expect from
students who were coming in from the public schools, public elementary schools,
and therefore the transition was not very smooth, and they had so many failures
in the white schools and in the black schools because of this transition that
was a very difficult thing. And so he said, "I would like to have a
good Negro teacher and a good white teacher to take the English classes in the
high schools, and teach the freshman students and help them to bridge the gap
between the two levels, educational levels. And at that time I had my son
in an English class, very amusing at times. He said to me one day after we
had an examination, and we were reading the scores. He said to me after
school one afternoon, "Mama?" I said, "Yes, what is it,
dear?" He said, "You know when the other children make mistakes
in class, their mothers don't know it. But when I make mistakes, you are
there, and you see and know the mistakes I'm making! Do you know how that
makes me feel?" I said, "Well, there is an advantage in that,
and there is a disadvantage because the other children don't tell their parents
that they didn't do well, but there is this advantage: I see where you
make your mistakes and I can help you!" He said, "Well, I guess
that's right, but it's pretty rough!"
Silveri: When you came back in 1935, what did
-- did you secure a job right away?
Herring: I had the promise that when I left
Harnett County, I'm sorry, when I left Asheville, if I would take this job in
Harnett County, if I didn't like it, the doors would always be open. I
could come back and get my job. All right, when I decided that I wanted to
stay, I accepted the challenge to work in this rural area. It was like
missionary work. I wrote Professor John H. Michael, who was my principal
at the time who released me to come there. Well, I wrote him and told him
that I had decided I wanted to come back here, and I said, "You said that
if anything special bogged me down or something like that --" So he
wrote me and told me that he did not have a vacancy at that time, but he said,
"I'm sure I can get the high school principal to take you temporarily until
I have an opening." Mr. Newbold, who was Director of the Division of
Negro Education, wrote a letter of recommendation to the high school principal,
Mr. Albert Manley. Mr. Gentry, who was the superintendent in Harnett
County, released me, and he wrote an excellent recommendation to the principal
and the superintendent here. So the high school principal took me there in
the high school on the high school staff.
Silveri: What was the name of the high
school?
Herring: Stephens-Lee High School.
Silveri: Where is that located?
Herring: It's located on Catholic Avenue,
just to the left when you go down Valley Street if you're going from David
Millard School on College Street. So that was the thing -- I did quite a bit
of experimenting while I was at -- I've always been a person who is willing to
experiment. I guess the thing that comes to my mind, and when things come
I have to say them. When I think of the things I have gone into, I think
of this: "Fools rush in where angels fear to tread." Well,
I would just go in: "Why don't you take this adventure?" I
will go into something; I will think about it seriously. I will plan
carefully; I will pray carefully about it, and then if I'm determined I'm going
to do that thing, I don't walk around the edges. I do a nose dive into it.
Then I don't have any choice, I have to fight like fury to get out of it.
So that's what I'm doing with this thing, and I hope I'll survive. I have
survived in the other ordeals. But coming back to this matter, I took the
freshmen students as I said; I had over two hundred. They came from the
public schools in the city; they came from the county schools. They came
from the Catholic schools; I met them all there on common ground, and we did
what the principal and the superintendent considered a good job.
Then the principal one day had a meeting; he said,
"We're overcrowded, our classes are, and we need someone to do some classes
in algebra." This meeting was with the -- I didn't mention to you that
on the third floor there were elementary classes. So he was meeting with
the elementary people, but in this meeting, he said, "I'd like to get
somebody to volunteer to teach two algebra classes." Well, no one
volunteered; so that next morning, Mr. Manley called me from the office, and
said, "Mrs. Herring, I've had a teacher to volunteer to do the classes in
algebra, but I would like for you to take the classes in algebra." I
said, "Well, Mr. Manley, I haven't ever taught algebra; I did well in math
when I was in school, but I would have to brush-up on my algebra. If you
just can't get anyone to take the classes, take me as a last resort, but try to
find someone else on the high school level who has been teaching math."
He said, "I've tried that, and I can't find anybody else, and I'm asking
you if you'll take it." Well, I consented, and I took the two math
classes; then I took social studies for the sixth grade as a strange
combination.
Then Mr. Manley was principal of the Mountain
Street School; he was supervising principal. He was principal of
Stephens-Lee High School, and he was supervising principal of the Mountain
Street School which meant that they had a building principal there who had a
full-time job of teaching third grade. So you know there wasn't very much
supervision there, but they had to do testing; so he asked me since my field was
elementary education if I would do the testing for him. Well, I did; I did
the testing in the school. The State had a testing program then: every
year, every spring they would do testing, and the results were sent to the State
Department, and I did that.
At another time he said to me, "We are having
so much trouble with some of our students, I'm wondering if I could let you have
a half day off once a week to visit the homes of problem children."
Well, I didn't have sense enough to say no; I said, "Well, yes, I'll do
it!" Whenever a problem came up that necessitated a conference with
parents, I would go into the homes unless it was something very serious that the
principal had to call them in. I visited homes and talked to parents about
the students; many a problem was solved in that way, and so I was listed at that
time as a visiting teacher although I was doing some other work there at the
school.
Silveri: Is Stephens-Lee High School the only black
high school in Buncombe County?
Herring: The only black high school in
Western North Carolina; it was for a number of years. We had buses; you
see that's the thing that makes this matter of busing such a pathetic situation.
All the "hue and cry" about children being transported certain
distances. I remember when I was in Harnett County, and the black children
had the one-teacher schools, and two- and three-teacher schools, and the white
kids were being transported from one of the county to the other . Some of
them getting up at six o'clock in the morning, seven o'clock in the morning to
catch buses to be transported to big consolidated schools. The Burnsville
Case -- did you say you had been to Burnsville? About how many miles do you
think Burnsville is from Asheville?
Silveri: It's about -- from downtown Asheville
to Burnsville is probably close to forty miles!
Herring: Well, alright, here's a forty-mile
trip! Those children at Burnsville had a one-teacher school that was a
very dilapidated school; it was condemned, and they asked permission to
come to the white schools. No! That was against the law! So,
they said, "We'll furnish buses for you." Now the thing that
caused Burnsville to be one of the black schools to attract national attention
was the fact that a member of the NAACP local snapped a picture of a
six-year-old child; you know what time he had to get up to travel forty miles,
had traveled, and it was in the winter forty miles in an unheated school bus,
and the severe mountain weather here, and you know the curves you encounter
going to Burnsville. I went there the first time, and I almost lost my
breath going around some of those curves. Now in an unheated bus and all
[those] hazardous curves in icy weather and snow; those little fellows with the
older ones were transported here to Asheville High. My classroom was on
the eastside, and I could see the bused coming in from Burnsville, from
Weaverville, and from all around. Now in some of the counties like Canton,
and out in that area, they didn't transport them; they paid tuition for them.
Then another thing I recall how proudly the white kids would ride through the
city going to private schools on buses, Catholic schools and that type of thing.
So riding a bus was a privilege then. Now it's a crime almost, but let's
leave that controversial thing, and come back down to Stephens-Lee.
Silervi: Well when you came back, it was in the
middle of -- well it was in the depression. Things were tough in Asheville,
weren't they?
Herring: Yes, things were rather rugged, but we
tightened out belts and kept going.
Silveri: When did you come to live with your
sister and brother-in-law? Where were they living?
Herring: They lived on Congress Street.
They had a very nice home for a sturdy home, and it had a story and a half, and
the upstairs was an apartment and was very comfortable. My son and I had
the apartment. I don't remember, I can't state specifically; I'm not
thinking -- I can't think in any specific time. I stayed quite a number of
years, and I'll tell you what happened.
I finally bought a home because I wanted my son to
have home of his own. I didn't have the money to buy a home so I had a
car; it was a Plymouth , and I sold my car. I got three hundred dollars
for it. Mr. Haywood Parker, a white lawyer here, had a house at 91 Broad
Street. He had sold it to three different people, and each of my race, and
each one had lost it. Well, I take that back. Two had lost it and
the third had died. So he said, "If you pay for the home within a
year, I'll let you have it for three thousand dollars on your own terms!
But if you'll pay for it within a year, I'll give you a hundred dollars!"
Well, I don't recall what I paid him by the month now, but before the year was
over, I went to the Federal Savings and Loan Association and borrowed the money.
I got them to take over and sign up for it; so before the year was over I had
paid him, and the Asheville Federal had taken over the situation. Which
means that Mr. Parker had no bank transaction, he just wrote up the papers, you
know, and I made payments to him. But when it was turned over to the bank,
I said, "Well, now I paid for it!" He said, "I'll write you a
check for your hundred dollars," so I paid for that [home] through
Asheville Federal Savings and Loan.
Silveri: Was that before the second World War
or after?
Herring: I don't think -- right now, I don't
even think -- when was the second World War?
Silveri: It was 1941--1940 when we got into
it.
Herring: When we got into it, 1940.
Well, I don't recall that it was '40 when I bought that house. It had to
be though; it had to be in the '40s. Yes, you see my thinking's a little
foggy. As I talk, I'm talking through my emotions, and that makes the
brain a little bit foggy. But it had to be, but this is the thing that I
want to follow on the situation, I got the house for three thousand dollars.
But I spent ever so much money improving it, bit by bit, including putting in
central heating, having plastering knocked off and replaced, bath downstairs, a
carport, adding a kitchen. I paid three thousand dollars for it, and I was
eventually offered ten thousand dollars for it as the years passed. See
I'm thinking in spans, not dates. But I refused it because at that time I
didn't want to leave the home; I had my aunt with me who was in her
eighties, and my boy was in school then, in college then.
But eventually I decided that I wanted to sell it,
of course I had been nursing my older sister there who was paralyzed, and
incidentally, I took her while I was teaching, directing the summer school,
reading clinic in North Carolina College. It might seem rather strange,
but I took her to Durham to the summer school in an ambulance, and stayed in a
guest house and got a practical nurse to take care of her until I could get out
of class in the afternoon. I took a wheelchair, a hospital bed, and a
hydraulic lift to lift her out of bed.
One summer there I directed the summer school for
five weeks at the North Carolina College and had my assistant to finish the last
week, and I went to Duke University for the National Science Foundation
Workshop. I received a stipend for the following six weeks. I came
home each afternoon and evening and stayed with my sister, took care of my
sister. That was the year I had a heart block, and didn't know what a
heart block was then. I thought I was tired.
Well, let's come back now to Stephens-Lee again
with that program. While I was at Stephens-Lee during that period, Mr. A.
E.
Manley was a very ambitious man. He would go to summer school every
summer. When he went there as principal, Professor Lee died; he replaced
Professor Lee. When he went there, some of the teachers had not been to
summer school in seventeen years, and he started a program of teacher
improvement. And from the special fund that they had, I don't recall
whether they called it the Athletic Fund or whatever it was, but it came from
that type of thing, activities. I think it was called the Activities Fund.
He said this, "If anybody wants to go to
summer school, the school will give you fifty dollars!" And I recall
that summer, three of the teachers decided to go to Boulder Dam to a summer
school workshop. Two decided to go to Teachers College at Columbia University,
and they got fifty dollars. So I said to him, "I have a sister and
brother in Chicago, and I won't take anything; I'll let that go to somebody who
will have to be paying board and that type of thing." I consented to
go to the University of Chicago to enter a workshop they wanted to do something
about a CORE-curriculum. So I entered the University of Chicago there, I
think it was '41; yes, for nine weeks.
When I came back after having been in that workshop
on the CORE-curriculum, I initiated a program there to develop innovation,
something that the teachers looked upon with suspicion. The superintendent
cooperated; he welcomed the experiment. He gave me new equipment, and it
was the kind of thing that you didn't use any basic textbook as such. We
didn't give any grades A, B, and C. But there was a specific way of
grading. If a student was not working up to his or her ability, and we
knew the student could do better, that resulted in a conference with the
parents. I had a meeting -- the principal called a meeting of the parents
of the children who would be involved in the program, and I explained it to them
fully. I said, "Now will you trust me? I will guarantee that
these children will get as much as they would get if they were in regular
classrooms; in fact, they are going to get a much richer program!"
They consented, and there was a fee they had to pay.
Well the program was very successful. That
first year in the middle of the year in December, Professor Michael died; he was
the person who gave my first job in the county and in the city, and he was the
one who consented for me to go to Harnett County and do this experiment, I mean
work down there. And he told the superintendent before he died, he went to
visit him, and he knew he wasn't going to make it. He said, "I had
hoped to have a man take my place." He brought a man to Asheville, a
young man; the young man turned out to be a disappointment. So he said,
"I haven't been able to select a man, and I would like you to give Lucy
Herring my place!" Well, the superintendent sent for me, and he asked
-- He told me what had happened, and he said, "Now do you want the
principal-ship of the Hill Street School? It's an opportunity you haven't
had before." I said, "Mr. Roland H. Latham, you have spent --
(that was the superintendent's name) money for the experiment, for materials;
there is no one else who could do this experiment, no one else has the training
or the background to do it. I wouldn't think of walking off in the middle
of an experiment. I couldn't do a thing like that!" He said,
"I was hoping you wouldn't; I will remember you, and you will never regret
it!" So I went on and finished the work.
It was around 1941; I was at Chicago studying.
I don't recall whether it was...1941, but I came in from Chicago. I drove
in, my son and I. I was still staying at my sister's house. If we
keep on adding, you will get the number of years. My sister said,
"Mr. L. O. Miller said that Mr. R. H. Latham, the superintendent, wants you
to call him first thing in the morning; so I called Mr. Latham, and he asked me
if I would come to his office right away. I told him, "yes," so I was there
by nine-thirty.
When I reached the office, I found Mr. Manley, my
principal of the high school, and Frank Toliver, who was principal of
Morningside School in Statesville, North Carolina. The three men there
together: the superintendent, Mr. Manley, and Mr. Toliver. The
secretary said, "Go in, Mrs. Herring," and I walked in and saw the
three men there; I didn't know what was going on, but as you see I wasn't
bothered by venturing into a situation, I just went on in and sat down. So
Mr. Latham said, "Mrs. Herring, do you know why I sent for you?"
I said, "I don't have the slightest idea, Mr. Latham, why you sent for
me!" He said, "You don't have the slightest idea?" I
said, "No, not the slightest idea!" He said, "How would you
like to be principal of Mountain Street School?" I said, "Well,
I hadn't thought abut it, but it would depend on two things."
Second Session - August 2, 1977
Tape I, Side 2
He said, "What are the things?" I
said, "First, if the two schools Stephens-Lee and Mountain Street have been
divorced, I would be interested in it." He said, "Well, why
would that be important?" I said, "Well, if I'm going to be a
principal, I want to be a principal and not a figurehead." Well Miss
Mamie Martin had been the building principal; he said, "Do you mean to call
Miss Mamie a figurehead?" I said, "I'm not calling Miss Mamie
anything; I'm just saying that any person who's teaching a full class everyday,
and is in a building, and cannot make decisions, and can not plan her own
program without the approval of someone else, is just a figurehead!"
He said, "Well, be that as it may, what's your
second proposition to me?" I said, "Well, I would be interested
in it if Miss Mamie is not being replaced; I don't want to take anybody's
job." He said, "Well, Miss Mamie is not able to teach; she has
retired on the basis of physical disability, and she's permanently ill."
I said, "Well, under those conditions, I will take it!" He said,
"Well, let me ask you another question." And the two men were
just sitting there smiling, didn't say a word, neither of them. They were
just sitting there. He said, "Are you afraid of anyone at the
Mountain Street School?" I said, "No! I've been going in
and out doing the testing; I didn't see anyone there I had any reason to
fear." He said, "Well, there is one teacher there who is very
difficult to work with; she has a long record of being difficult, and you don't
have to take her. She hasn't been hired. We took her on condition
because of something that came up; we don't have to keep her. Well, I
guess I might as well be frank and say it was the former principal's sister.
He took her here because the sister was not so well. Now, she doesn't have
to stay; she isn't permanently hired. She's hoping to get on this year
again, but you don't have to take her. She's very difficult!"
I said, "Mr. Latham, I don't want to be
responsible for putting anyone out of work, and I will try her. I believe
I can work with her; I know her." What I didn't tell Mr. Latham, I
took her prayerfully because I knew more about how difficult she was than Mr.
Latham did. Because I lived three doors above her, and she would pass, and
my house, my home where my parents lived was almost on the street. You
could step off the porch on the sidewalk. She would pass there, and my
mother and father and some of us would be sitting on the porch in the little
swings they used to have, you know the little porch swings. And she would
pass with her head in the air; she wouldn't even say, "Good evening, good
afternoon, good morning." She never spoke. And I have been to
the home where she lived with her sister because her niece and I were very close
friends; we taught together. And I would walk up on the porch, and she
would be sitting there. I would ring the bell, and she would be
reading a book, and she wouldn't raise her eyes. But I knew that was the
way -- well, I started to say the way God made her, but I don't think God made
her that way; I think the world or something else in her experience made her
that way. But I didn't have any animosity towards her because that was the
way she was.
Silveri: Well, you accepted that job.
Herring: Yes.
Silveri: Were you the first woman principal
of any school in Asheville?
Herring: No, no not at all. No, not at
all! There was a principal at Livingston Street School, a woman [Mrs.
Rachel S. Battle] who was
principal at Livingston Street School, the largest elementary school, and there
was a woman who was principal of a three-teacher school in West Asheville.
The other principals as I recall were men.
Silveri: Well, about how many students were
in this school when you took it over as principal?
Herring: There were approximately three
hundred fifty when I went there, and there were ten teachers.
Silveri: And those were students from just
greater Asheville?
Herring: Only Asheville students, and the
grades ran from one to six.
Silveri: I'm going to stop here for a minute
and ask you if you can recall what percentage of population of Asheville was
black in those years.
Herring: It was about a third.
Silveri: About a third. Was it
constantly about a third?
Herring: It's been a constant kind of thing,
yes. I took that school. The teachers -- I didn't know it at the
time, but because I had worked in the school with the testing and had worked
with the teachers in that way as a visiting teacher with their problems.
Those teachers had made a request to Mr. Manley the supervising principal that
he recommend me to Mr. Latham for the job; so they asked for me, and that made
it very nice. So we moved along beautifully.
There was one teacher who had been the former
principal's bosom friend for years; she had been a teacher fifty two years!
She was very disappointed and very nervous about the fact that I was going to be
principal because I was young. I shall never forget this experience; she
was a lovely soul, and I knew she was uncomfortable. So she called me one
afternoon on the yard, and she said, "May I come to your office this
afternoon and talk with you?" By the way, they didn't have an office
then; they had an office, an office that was built for the school, but they had
used it for storage because there was no principal to occupy it. But we
had that cleared up; and with the faculty, we just made a most attractive office
with drapes, and in-laid linoleum, and it was just equipped with Venetian
blinds. It just was very beautiful. I told her, "Yes, I'll be
glad to talk with you, Mrs. Swan."
So she came in; she sat down. I can see her
now. She said, "Well, Mrs. Herring?" I said, "Yes,
Mrs. Hattie Swan." "Mr. Latham (that's the superintendent), and
Mr. Manley seem to think you are smart; I'll tell you this, you can't move
mountains!" Well, it shocked me somewhat. I said, "Well,
Mrs. Swan, I disagree with you!" She said, "What do you
mean?" I said, "I can move mountains, if you will help me, if
you and the other teachers will help me! We can move
mountains!" Well, her whole expression changed; she was afraid of me
because I was young. She was afraid of me because my training had been
more recent and more advanced, and I put her at ease. I said, "Now
listen; I am going to work with the teachers; I'm not here to work over
you. I'm here to work with you!" And so she said, "I was
hoping you were smart enough to realize that, that you could only succeed by
working with us!"
And she said, "There's another thing I am
concerned about; you've been doing all that fancy teaching over there at
Stephens-Lee. That -- what do you call that thing?" I said,
"The CORE-curriculum." She said, "Yes. Well, you're
not going to start that stuff over here are you?" I said, "Well,
I hadn't thought about it; I'm thinking about reading, writing, and arithmetic,
and I am concerned about improved methods of teaching. But I'm telling you
this, I am not going to interfere with your method of teaching because good
teachers use different type methods of teaching." And she said,
"Well, yes, that's right!" I said, "I'm going to work with
you, and I'm not going to put any pressure on you to change to go into any kind
of experiment; I'm going to keep on letting you do the good teaching you have
been doing because you are a good teacher." And she was. But we
didn't try to force any teacher into any change.
There was a teacher there on the faculty who was a
very progressive teacher, and she came to me one day. She said, "Mrs.
Herring, will you allow me next year to teach my children (she was a first grade
teacher) and not use a basic text?" And I said, "Well, plan your
program, and let's go over it." And she had a very sound program
planned, individualized program -- individualized instruction; she got the program
started. I checked with her at intervals, and she explained to me as she
went along, step by step. And as I observed, I saw that she was doing what
people make so much fuss about now, individualized instruction. Of course,
the other teachers looked upon it with a little bit of suspicion just as the
folks did at the other school on the CORE-curriculum. So I mentioned the
fact that Mrs. Robinson, that was her name, was doing a wonderful job. She
was Miss Knuck |
